The founder of a suspended Malaysian budget airline has been arrested on suspicion of financial crimes, the police revealed on Wednesday. Previous week, MYAirline suddenly took the decision and implemented it to stop operations understanding financial burdens, less than a year after it started flying. The airline, which services mostly domestic routes with nine aircraft, said operations would stop “until further notice”. Mr Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf, director of the police commercial crime investigation department, said MYAirline founder and major shareholder Allan Goh Hwan Hua, his 55-year-old wife and 26-year-old son were arrested on Tuesday.
“Police have obtained a four-day remand from Wednesday for them to assist investigations under the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001,” Mr Ramli said. MYAirline, which started flying last December, said its suspension would permit for a “shareholder restructuring and recapitalisation”, but gave no timeline for operations to resume. “We have been doing our job tirelessly to locate various partnership and capital raising options to hinder this suspension,” the carrier’s board of directors said in a statement previous week.